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I'll admit I was wrong about Justin Smoak. He still can't hit LHP and plays awful defense, but he's been a fantastic hitter against RHP(.306/.408/.522) while hitting at home(.263/.361/.397) and on the road(.285/.384/.482). Although the Mariners weren't going to trade Smoak after they traded Mike Carp.

I'm not sure that Smoak's bat is good enough to be a full time DH. I'm also not sure that his glove is good enough to push Davis into a DH role. I guess the bottom line for me is simple, if Smoak cant prosper in the AL West what makes you think he will do well here. IMO Smoak has had plenty of opportunities in Seattle. If you ranked him among his 1B peers in the AL, he would be at or near the bottom. I just don't see what his role or value would be to this or future teams. Its nice that he and Wieters are friends, maybe we can trade Wieters to the Mariners, they have some nice pieces in their farm system.....

dan72 wrote:I'm not sure that Smoak's bat is good enough to be a full time DH. I'm also not sure that his glove is good enough to push Davis into a DH role. I guess the bottom line for me is simple, if Smoak cant prosper in the AL West what makes you think he will do well here. IMO Smoak has had plenty of opportunities in Seattle. If you ranked him among his 1B peers in the AL, he would be at or near the bottom. I just don't see what his role or value would be to this or future teams. Its nice that he and Wieters are friends, maybe we can trade Wieters to the Mariners, they have some nice pieces in their farm system.....

Smoak can't hit LHP, so yes he can't be a full-time DH. He's not ideal at 1B either, but neither is Davis. Justin Smoak as a DH vs. RHP would be a really valuable player. He gets on-base though. His numbers right now suggest he's top ten offensive first basemen.

Im not a fan of carrying specialists. By that I mean guys that can only hit from one side or the other. Id rather have a guy that can hit from both sides. If he is a top ten offensive 1B then there must be a large performance gap between the top tier guys and the guys that rank towards the bottom of the top ten...... I can see where the Orioles would have interest, he would be cheap to aquire.

dan72 wrote:Im not a fan of carrying specialists. By that I mean guys that can only hit from one side or the other. Id rather have a guy that can hit from both sides. If he is a top ten offensive 1B then there must be a large performance gap between the top tier guys and the guys that rank towards the bottom of the top ten...... I can see where the Orioles would have interest, he would be cheap to aquire.

No he wouldn't be easy/cheap to acquire. Maybe during the off-season, before the Mariners traded Mike Carp the the Redsox. Smoak has the 5th highest OBP out of all regular first basemen. Olney was speculating Smoak to Baltimore in the offseason.

I hate to brake up the love fest for Smoak but here are some statistics that need brought to our attention-prior to 2013 he has never had an OBP above .323-prior to 2013 he has never hit for an AVG above .234-he strikes out alot, 91,105 and 111 the last three years in limited AB's. this year he has 82 SO, yet he has 130 less AB's than his everyday starting peers.-in his career he has never had more than 55 RBI's-prior to 2013 his highest WAR was 0.8In 2013 he will earn $514,000 and he is arbitraition eligible in 2014 where he will no doubt get a raise. Still to my point he will be cheap to obtain. He is not FA eligible until 2017. My point in presenting these stats is to show that prior to this season he has had a very slow start to his career to put it kindly. He has had a nice 2013 and yes he does rank 7-10 in most offensive categories. If we were playing moneyball yes he does have a nice OBP this year. I just don't see where a part time 1b/dh at 3-4 million per season is a smart move, that is essentially what he is since he would not start against LHP. Maybe the Orioles interest in Smoak is partially a plan to persuade Wieters to stay? That would be brilliant strategy.

dan72 wrote:I hate to brake up the love fest for Smoak but here are some statistics that need brought to our attention-prior to 2013 he has never had an OBP above .323-prior to 2013 he has never hit for an AVG above .234-he strikes out alot, 91,105 and 111 the last three years in limited AB's. this year he has 82 SO, yet he has 130 less AB's than his everyday starting peers.-in his career he has never had more than 55 RBI's-prior to 2013 his highest WAR was 0.8In 2013 he will earn $514,000 and he is arbitraition eligible in 2014 where he will no doubt get a raise. Still to my point he will be cheap to obtain. He is not FA eligible until 2017. My point in presenting these stats is to show that prior to this season he has had a very slow start to his career to put it kindly. He has had a nice 2013 and yes he does rank 7-10 in most offensive categories. If we were playing moneyball yes he does have a nice OBP this year. I just don't see where a part time 1b/dh at 3-4 million per season is a smart move, that is essentially what he is since he would not start against LHP. Maybe the Orioles interest in Smoak is partially a plan to persuade Wieters to stay? That would be brilliant strategy.

Buster Olney speculated about Smoak in December 2012. "Speculating" means total crap in the real world, it's just Olney thinking without anything to substantiate his "speculating". I'm sure the Orioles have absolutely no interest in obtaining him when they have the BEST hitting 1st baseman in the major leagues in 2013...........................

dan72 wrote:I hate to brake up the love fest for Smoak but here are some statistics that need brought to our attention-prior to 2013 he has never had an OBP above .323-prior to 2013 he has never hit for an AVG above .234-he strikes out alot, 91,105 and 111 the last three years in limited AB's. this year he has 82 SO, yet he has 130 less AB's than his everyday starting peers.-in his career he has never had more than 55 RBI's-prior to 2013 his highest WAR was 0.8In 2013 he will earn $514,000 and he is arbitraition eligible in 2014 where he will no doubt get a raise. Still to my point he will be cheap to obtain. He is not FA eligible until 2017. My point in presenting these stats is to show that prior to this season he has had a very slow start to his career to put it kindly. He has had a nice 2013 and yes he does rank 7-10 in most offensive categories. If we were playing moneyball yes he does have a nice OBP this year. I just don't see where a part time 1b/dh at 3-4 million per season is a smart move, that is essentially what he is since he would not start against LHP. Maybe the Orioles interest in Smoak is partially a plan to persuade Wieters to stay? That would be brilliant strategy.

1. The word "prior" was used in several of those statistics. Hardly any young players come to the majors and show their true talent level right away. Yasiel Puig will not hit .376 in the majors, or likely anything close to it. Cliff Lee didn't show his true ability until age 29. The light finally switched for Chris Davis this year in his sixth season. Many players need time to show what kind of player they really are. In this case, it seems like Justin Smoak has finally turned his potential into production in his fourth major league season. That's what young players do.

2. Okay, so Smoak strikes out alot. So does Chris Davis, yet nobody is complaining about him?

3. One does not have to use moneyball as a reason to site OBP as a valuable statistic. Batting average is just a component of on base percentage.

4. Buster Olney was speculating the Orioles might trade for Justin Smoak in DECEMBER of 2012, like SeafordEagles said. I guess it could have made sense from the outside, as Chris Davis was neither established as a hitter or a defender. Per Espn, Chris Davis was actually projected to regress offensively. I didn't really want to trade for him, because he wasn't a productive player yet, we had enough first base depth in the majors/minors, and it was time for Chris Davis to become a full-time first basemen.

5. In your previous post, you said it would be cheap to acquire Justin Smoak, yet now you are saying it was be cheap to obtain Justin Smoak. He would be cheap to obtain right now, but it would no be cheap to acquire on the best offensive first basemen in the game.